Until the momentous year of
1870, the only ballet music to have stood the test of time outside
the theatre came from the world of opera. The success of
Coppélia at its first Paris Opera performance on 25 May that
year, at least as a specimen of what Tchaikovsky was later to
define as ‘the pretty, le joli in music’, may have been
at odds with both the atmosphere of France’s impending war
with Prussia and with the original E.T.A. Hoffmann story on which
archivist Charles Nuitter’s scenario was so loosely based,
but it deftly exploited the rage for all things mechanical that was
sweeping through Paris at the time:

the city was home to a
veritable industry of manufacturers and vendors of automata:
Coppélia is, of course, a doll brought to life for male
delectation.

By the time Sylvia was
premiered six years later, Delibes’ eye for a narrative and
ear for a tune and for translucent orchestration had made him a
sensation: the premiere was attended by the great and the good of
Europe’s world of ballet, travelling from as far afield as St
Petersburg to witness a more modest tale, based on a mythological
scenario, but brought to life with no less charm and
wit.

The conductors in charge of
these recordings had the world of Delibes at their fingertips;
masters of light orchestral textures and lightning reflexes. They
are classics of the catalogue, and their return will be welcomed by
the balletomane audience but also those connoisseurs of the great
Eastern European conducting tradition.

‘Doráti’s
Coppélia [is] a revelation. Never before has a top conductor
taken such care over music of this calibre or made it sparkle so
freshly… Doráti’s tempi are sometimes faster
than those favoured by ballet companies, but there are unlikely to
be any dancers in your sitting room, and he does make Delibes sound
a much better composer than usual. There is an excitement about
these discs, an air of

occasion, that makes them
something rather special.’ Gramophone, November
1975